


Meeting As if By Chance

by butterflydreaming (chrysalisdreams)



Series: White Flowers AU [3]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: Alternate Universe, CLAMPverse vampirism implied, Fix my own fics, Gen, Magic Girls are in the family, Other, Where AUs meet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5241413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalisdreams/pseuds/butterflydreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuriko Kinomoto is not the heir that Clow foresaw, but Keroberos and Yue supported her -- until Yue displeased her. Seeking aid, weak from wounds and insufficient magic, Yue doesn't realize that he has caught the attention of another magic "girl," Kikuu Amamiya, cousin to Nadeshiko Kinomoto and Sonomi Daidouji.</p>
<p>This continuation of an alternate universe from two older fics of mine brings together OCs from "Matters of Chance" and "Hunger."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Matters of Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Note: It would be ridiculous to read this without first having read “Hunger” and “Matters of Chance.” This is… a sequel of sorts. It’s indulgent, and awful, but maybe a little entertaining to you, too?

 

            Yukito enjoyed his first airplane ride.  The food was only a little snack box, and the in-flight movie wasn’t very interesting, but he had a seat by a window.  There was something _familiar_ about looking down through the breaks in the clouds and seeing the ocean below, and about the clouds themselves, seen from above.  He nodded off on the long flight, but whenever he woke, the scene through the window was always the same: the distant sparkling of the Pacific, the racing mists, and the hypnotic blue of the sky.

             His grandparents had surprised him: they were sending him alone to California while they themselves slipped away to yet another romantic get-away.  He had some trouble at the airport, though. For some reason... when he tried to remember why, recall slithered away from him... he was late and the boarding agents hurried him on. The plane taxied down the runway and began gaining the speed to make its leap into the sky minutes after Yukito took his seat.

             In those moments while the engines screamed and the airplane fought the bonds of gravity, the calm of the other passengers reassured him. The plane felt as though it would fall out of the air, unable to get free of the earth.  The moment when the airplane straightened felt like magic. If magic were real, he thought, it would be like flying through the skies.

             He woke up again as the airplane cruised over a glitter of lights. Yukito peered through the window, searching for the Golden Gate Bridge. Then he realized that he had the American cities mixed up. Like the stop in Hawaii that gave him a chance to change currency, Los Angeles was another stop before his destination.

       It would have been nice to have someone with him, he thought.  He hadn’t made any close friends among his schoolfellows, though. Every now and again during high school, a girl would confess to him and they would date for a time. Then the girl would move on to someone else. He’d never been able to find anyone that he could be close to, except for Nadeshiko-san, and she had always been like a mother to him.

             For some reason, thinking about her stirred a pain inside of him.  It was strange that he would miss her so much already; it wasn’t as if they were never going to see each other again.  He would remember to bring back souvenirs -- something for Nadeshiko, and something for little Yuriko, too.

 

. . .

 

            Yue struggled to adjust to the erratic wobbling of fate’s wheel.  He hadn’t dared to sleep while Yukito was manifest, and he was tired from constantly adjusting the perceptions of his false form.  The San Francisco bound flight had been a matter of chance rather than choice. It was as if all other directions were blocked. He originally purchased travel to England, only to have the flight canceled without a timely replacement available. He made Yukito take the next available international flight.

      At the layover in Honolulu, the jet was grounded for mechanical issues and the continuing leg had to be rebooked. Then at Los Angeles, as the airplane approached the coastal city at a late hour, the captain announced that fog prevented all flights heading into SFO, San Francisco’s main airport. Everyone would have to deboard at LAX. Yue overheard other passengers make plans to rent an automobile and drive rather than fight for the next available flight north.

             The time was past midnight local time at the end of a weekend, and only a few bleary souls passed through the airport. Yue dismissed his false form again. He retained Yukito’s clothing. In a stall of the airport restroom, he pushed the length of his hair down the shirt and wrapped the long tassel around his waist, but it was not enough to hide his second most distinctive feature. His wings, he could hide by nature. Normalizing his hair meant hacking it off at shoulder length with the sharp edge of a sapphire blade. Making the blade took magic that he did not have in abundance. The magic power he had taken from Nadeshiko was as thin as a trickle of rain, lost in dry riverbed where whitewater once thundered.

      Cutting off his hair had given him a few moments of wounded vanity, and the cut was not even.  Yet his head felt strangely light afterward. The act had been almost liberating. He refreshed the bindings on his wounds. The broken bones had just begun to knit, so he concentrated his thin magic on healing. Even still, he was less taxed by remaining in his true form than by sheep-dogging Yukito’s consciousness.

      It felt strange to be himself again after years of wearing a false form. He thought of the way that Clow would shed the heavy, fur-trimmed winter robes for light silk in the summer, and then shed most of even those on the hottest days. Yue did not feel the changes of temperature in the same way. A heavy garment or a light one made little difference to him when he had his strength. He understood, now, Clow’s pleasure in simply disrobing. In this unfamiliar place and strange time, he now understood something about his creator that he had not while his maker lived. Clow was gone, but memory brought him close, and Yue felt less alone.

      He flagged a cab driver and inquired where he might go to find a gathering of people, and the cabbie suggested one of Santa Monica’s night clubs. There could be someone, even in America, who had some small magic he could take. With no other plan, Yue took the chance. He paid the driver in newly exchanged cash once the cab pulled over to the sidewalk outside of an lighted, noisy establishment. He stepped out of the cab.

      Yue had not realized how strongly he had hoped to find another source of magic until he felt the faint presence of it outside the night club. As unlikely as it was, someone here had significant power, power that Yue still needed. The driver departed, and Yue sought out the club’s entrance. It proved to be a challenge.

      A woman, the smoke of her cigarette casting the scent of fine tobacco leaves upward in a long curl, watched him with curiosity. “Are you looking for the way in?” she asked, her voice pitched to carry past the spillover noise from the club. She blew out a hazy smoke ring, then pinched out her cigarette. “It’s through the parking lot,” she said. She walked toward him. “But, no offense, they won’t let you in dressed like that.” Close now, she looked him over from crown to shoe. With a manicured hand, she pushed a lock of her hair behind an ear that sparkled with a large diamond. Her hair showed the attentions of a stylist; the cut was precise and the color a lighter brown than he would expect for someone with her Japanese features. “You look a little rumpled.”

      She herself wore a short, black evening dress and matching accoutrements. She tucked her handbag under one arm. “It might be OK if you come in with me,” she suggested.

      “Thank you,” said Yue.

      It earned him a Mona Lisa smile and a studied look of interest. “Are you sure this is where you want to be?”

      “No,” Yue admitted, seeing no reason to lie. “Little else is open at this hour, and I seek nourishment.”

      The woman’s smile grew larger. “Then you really do need to come with me. I’m Chrys, by the way,” she said. Turning back while walking away, she beckoned him to follow her.

      She led him through a dark parking lot to a nondescript door. A thickset man stood outside. The music and noise of people sounded louder on the side of the building. It spilled out of the door in a flood as security opened the door for the woman without hesitation.

      She waited for Yue. “My English friend is my guest,” she told the bouncer. “Thanks, Marcus.” She waived Yue in and started toward the bar.

      The small room seemed to Yue to contain every attractive young person awake in the city at the odd hour. Air conditioning managed the heat of many bodies and lights, else the indoor temperature would have exceeded outdoor by a significant difference. The central mass of humanity danced, in the modern style, to the manipulations of a disc jockey on a dais.

      A second security agent appeared to act as a pilot, clearing a path for Chrys so that the woman did not need to push her way through the throng of club goers. One of the busy bartenders paused in fulfilling drink orders and gave Chrys her full attention as soon as Chrys and Yue stepped up. Yue’s host placed an order for sake. “And bring something from the kitchen. My guest needs _nourishment,_ ” she finished, with a glance back at Yue.

      They then made their way out of the crowded area to a quieter room. A small amount of club noise leaked through the door that remained slightly open.

      “Have a seat,” she said. “As you might have guessed by now,” she added with wry humor, “this is my club, so I have some privileges.” She took a place on the opposite end of the office sofa from Yue. “So tell me your story,” she engaged. “What washed you up on this coast?”

      Yue asked, “Pardon?”

      “Your accents sounds English, and you look like you’ve been traveling. Am I right?”

      “You are perceptive. I learned to speak English in England, though I am from...” he stopped himself. “Elsewhere,” he finished.

      The woman’s closed-lipped smile turned upward again. “I didn’t catch your name,” she said, holding out a hand in greeting. She wore a bangle of fine jade around her wrist and multiple rings on her fingers that all sparkled with gemstones.

      Yue took her hand just as a knock rapped at the door and a member of the club staff entered with a serving tray. He was spared responding to the surprise of contact by the distraction of plates and glasses.

      “It’s last call, Boss,” said the server to Chrys. He opened the large bottle of sake before positioning it on the coffee table between the small plates of food. “Here’s water, too. Drink it. Can I get you anything else?”

      Chrys looked at Yue. “Requests?” she asked.

      “Thank you. This is generous,” stated Yue.

      She poured both sake glasses full. A flicker of annoyance crossed her face when the employee did not close the door completely as he left. The composed smile returned as she slid into a comfortable position on the sofa, drink in hand. “Please, help yourself. Where were we?” she asked.

      Yue considered the invitation. He stared at her hands, considering what he had felt. She was the magic presence that he had been sensing, and her magic was strong, buried deep but potent. It thundered when their hands made contact. His wounds made sharp demands. So close to a source of power, his need growled its hunger.

      “Are you all right?” Chrys asked. She leaned toward him. She sipped her rice wine. “Maybe you should drink something.” She set her cup down and offered him one of the water glasses.

      He reached for the water, but took her wrist instead. He looked up, then, and met her eyes.

      “Oh,” she said. “‘ _Nourishment_ ,’ you said. You don’t drink wine. That explains a lot.” She turned her look toward the slightly open door.

 

. . .

 

It did not matter if Sonomi Amamiya, now Sonomi Daidouji, had not spoken to Chrys since her last visit to Japan over twenty years ago; Nadeshiko and her cousin in the United States still stubbornly called each other several times a year.  It was traditional to catch up on each other’s birthdays, but on May twentieth (across the Date Line), Chrys found herself disbelievingly listening to her cousin’s husband, Fujitaka, instead.

  _"We don't know what her chances are..."_

 Her first thought was to fly to Japan. She wanted to see Nadeshiko.  Her second thought pushed the first from her mind, filling her with a calm coldness.  To where had Yukito Tsukishiro fled?

  Chrys yanked at the lines of fate. The possibilities between her and Tsukishiro presented a dense tangle of threads. She began at Nadeshiko's life line. She found his where it crossed over and turned the direction of her cousin’s line. Chrys ripped his threads toward her own. She would make one of them come her way. It was what her power could do.

 On her own side, she teased out futures so that they fanned like the questing tendrils of an anemone. Over the next hours, she turned every promising line from each side toward a central point. Her own energized lines sought vengeance with little encouragement. Like her namesake chrysanthemum, the shape was a funereal white flower whose petals of possibility reached to force a meeting.

 When she was done, only a single line spooled to intersect her own. She slumped in her chair, dropping her head onto folded arms. The last time that she had used her magic as much had been... years. Chrys closed her eyes. She anticipated the coming migraine with a degree of welcome. It, at least, was manageable pain.

 . . .

 She couldn’t sleep. She waited for sleep while the hours dripped like melting birthday candles, her thoughts burning hotter with every drip. Midnight came, bringing the twentieth  -- Nadeshiko’s birthday -- to Chrys’s time zone.

 Chrys already regretted the use of her power. The headache was the least of it. She considered canceling her newly booked flight to Tokyo as an attempt to derail what she had already set in motion. Her opposing inclination was to follow through and take the flight, but that did not stop the dread of what consequences would be paid as her price for meddling with fate. Or would it not work at all? Magic was real. She knew of the hidden side of L.A., the one obscured by Hollywood’s glamour and all the sunshine and smog. Still, she sometimes wondered if her magic had ever been real. Luck magic. She had been born into influence and wealth, an Amamiya. Who could tell luck apart from that?

 She thought to herself, _if only the day was really starting over._ She realized, then, that she was having middle-of-the-night thoughts. She gave up on sleep and dressed to go out, making her destination the night club that she owned in Santa Monica. Even on a Sunday night, the club typically drew a crowd. Chrys wanted the life and the noise. She also wanted to put a hole in the bar’s inventory. Seeing their boss get disgustingly drunk would not shock her Santa Monica staff. They had seen it often enough.

 When she got there, the staff talked her into dancing instead of drinking. She worked off some anxiety on the dance floor, then went outside for a smoke.

 In the cool, ocean scented air, she stood outside and toyed with a cigarette. She let her mind go blank, concentrating on her efforts to blow smoke rings.  She didn’t smoke often, but when upset, she craved a cigarette.  Smoking was banned nearly everywhere in L.A. now. She couldn’t smoke in her own club. Out on the street, the sweet smoke mixed with the salt carried from the waves. Every few minutes, she would get company on the sidewalk and make small talk with them, and then the invaders would return inside to the music.

 She pinched out her unfinished cigarette and was about to go back inside when a distracting sight appeared. He was an ash-blonde whose hair was cut bluntly just above his shoulders. It looked hacked off. The length around his face made wisps of it drift over his cheeks, hiding his eyes. He stepped out of the taxi already looking lost. His clothes were styled all wrong for him, as if he had borrowed the wardrobe of a college student. She heard him speak to the taxi driver before the taxi departed.

 His mellow voice floated to Chrys’s ear, carrying without effort over the uneven noise coming from inside. Chrys felt a response of warmth, deep and  low, stir within her.  She had a peculiar weakness for certain accents, and his was the clear, refined turn of vowels that had made her a closet addict to BBC America. She felt like a sexual cougar for thinking it, but if she had that voice whispering with intimate closeness into her ear, she would take it in trade for sleep. Maybe his small stature and college boy clothes made him seem younger than he actually was, she considered. She guessed that he was over twenty-five and hoped for thirty.

 She flirted, and he responded in a bewildered way. On closer inspection, he didn’t look lost in the sense of not knowing where he was. If he had not been so peculiarly attractive, if his voice had been less mellifluous or his eyes less exotically colored, she questioned whether she would have invited him inside as she did. She let Marcus and Max and Pam treat her like the VIP that she was, all as part of her flirtation.

 Alone with him in the night club office, she pried at his shell. Jake brought a favorite sake with the variety of small plates out of the otherwise closed kitchen. Her guest, however, didn’t reach for the offerings.

 When he grasped her wrist, she understood why. “Oh,” she said. “That explains a lot.” With care, she took the water glass from her captured hand with her free hand and placed the glass back on the table. “You weren’t lost. You were hunting. Am I right?”

 Shock traveled through his expression. No, he wasn’t local; he wouldn’t know how common it was for a pale skinned beauty to seek out a certain kind of company in her night club. He certainly wouldn’t know how often Chrys had been that kind of company.

 “If you’re hunting, I’m game,” she said. She waited expectantly, but he did nothing.

 Chrys pushed one of the loose locks that framed her face back behind one ear.  She let her eyes wander over his body, not hiding her speculation, and then brought her gaze up to meet his again.  The look in his eyes was one of uncertainty, the look of someone out of his element and unsure how to proceed.  “I’ll be blunt,” Chrys said, using a practiced tone that was frank and flirtatious.  “I need something to keep me from thinking for a few hours.” She moved closer to him. While he still gripped her wrist, she straddled his lap. Her dress rode up, revealing more bare leg. She tilted her head, making her hair fall away from her neck and shoulders.   “So… why don’t you kiss my neck, and we’ll see what happens next?” She tossed her question out like a dare.

 His eyes narrowed and a frown creased his brow.  “What do you…” he started to ask.

 “Aren’t you?” Chrys asked.  She questioned the wariness in her guest’s expression.  “An immortal,” she clarified. She leaned into him, bringing her lips to his neck and softly dragging her lips across his skin. Lifting herself up on her knees, she leaned her weight against his chest.

 His response was instantaneous, and not the one she expected: an exclamation of pain. His fingers clenched around her wrist with a tightness that hurt her.

 She jolted back. Her eyes ran along his torso with suspicion.  She reached out and ran a hand carefully under his shirt, touching bandages, causing Yue to flinch. “I didn’t know you were hurt.” She continued, with sympathy, “All the more reason for you to feed. You need what I have to give.”

 “Not the way you think,” answered Yue.  He let go of her wrist.  “That power that you have…” he started.

 Chrys sat back. “You’re not a vampire. Or an incubus?” She couldn’t hide the note of hopefulness.

 “No,” said Yue. “I need a source of magic,” he said.  “Strong enough to keep me living and to restore my abilities.  I am… as you said… an immortal, but – with what power I currently have, I am too…” his voice dropped, “weak, to continue much longer.”

 “Any kind of magic?” Chrys asked. “Mine?” She thought of a car flipped over, an ambulance carrying the driver away. A dozen other times when a stranger was hurt in place of someone Chrys cared about.

 Yue nodded.

 “Why didn’t you just take it? Or do you need consent?”

 A shadow passed over his already defeated expression. “No. I do not need consent,” he said so quietly that it was almost a whisper to himself.

 “The offer still stands,” Chrys said after consideration. “Only I have something unfinished.  When it’s done, you can have mine.”  He looked at her as if her even tone was a blow instead of an offering.  She sat back further and finished her first serving of sake.  “I stopped using it.  Except for this last thing.  Because the consequences for what I can do have to balance out the things I’ve done.  I’ve hurt people. It’s dangerous. IAnd it’s not worth it.”  She placed her palms flat against her lap.  “So, you can have all of it.” She moved abruptly to pour another serving. “If you can wait until I come back.”

 He looked haunted. He shook his head.

 The sake was at her lips when the obvious came to her. She did what she should have already done: she looked at his line of fate, following it back to before where it twined with her own. She hid her expression in the sipping of her sake. The complex flavors of the vintage filled her mouth with sweetness.

 “The loss of it could kill you,” he said. It was unnecessary confirmation.

  _Tsukishiro_ , she thought, unable to stop the twist of her mouth into a mirthless smile. _Lady Luck, you’re a bitch tonight._ The smile relaxed. _Was that to keep me from changing my mind?_ She walked to the door, clicked it closed, and discreetly turned the lock. Picking up the sake bottle, she sauntered to her desk and leaned against it.

 Third pour. Cup emptied. Alcohol induced heat crawled across her chest.

 Yue straightened his shirt and rose quietly.  “I should go,” he said.

 She crossed to block his retreat. “No,” she said. “You need to rest. Why not stay a bit longer?”

 He put a hand against her bare shoulder, in an attempt to move her aside, but Chrys held her ground and covered his hand with one of her own. Yue carefully extricated his fingers. He looked past her toward the exit.  “It would be better for you if I left now,” he stated.

 “I’ll take my chances,” Chrys challenged in her native Japanese, “Tsukishiro Yukito.”

 

. . .

           

Yue stepped back from the woman, then moved around her toward the door. Stress and fatigue caught up to him before he finished a second step.  His injured body and his depleted magic collapsed simultaneously. Renewed pain shot through him as he crumpled.  His vision spiraled and then darkened.

 When his consciousness returned, he was still on the floor. However, a textile covered him as a light blanket, rolled cloth pillowed his head, and his body had been straightened. He pushed himself up onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow. A weak and hazy morning light leaked in through vertical blinds.

 The woman approached and crouched next to him. Though her feet were bare, her garments were otherwise unchanged. Yue was unprepared for the first words that the woman spoke. She addressed him again in Japanese.

 She offered him a pair of white pills on her open palm and a glass of water. "You need these. I need coffee."

 He stared at the tablets in her hand. Her last words to him before his collapse echoed in his recall.

 "They're just aspirin. I'm fresh out of Rohypnol." She smiled at what must have been intended as joke but one that he did not understand. “I’m not going to roofie you,” she stated. “Drug you. Knock you out.”

 "I don't..." he started to say, then changed his mind and took the glass. He took in his surroundings: the makeshift pillow under his head, the brightly colored throw pulled across his legs. The proximity of the doorway. He opened his hand to her and she rolled the aspirin tablets in.

 "You barely breathed," said Chrys. She straightened with exaggerated care. "In case you are wondering, I still haven't decided what to do with you. But -- coffee,” she sighed, “first.” She took a seat at the perfunctory desk, where the sake bottle, nearly empty, and a few plates had ousted the flat screen monitor.

 Yue rose slowly to a sitting position. The world reeled around him. He gripped his knees until the spinning settled. The aspirin pills pressed into his palm. He discarded them beside the untouched glass of water.

 "You're in a bad way, Tsukishiro Yukito," she continued. “I’m interested in knowing how your injuries happened.” She ran a hand over her eyes. She did not appear well.

 “You must know about Kinomoto Yuriko, if you know something about Yukito,” Yue answered. In as few words as possible, he explained the Clow cards and Yuriko’s reaction to his taking of Nadeshiko’s magic. Remorse made even the bare explanation difficult for him to tell.

 The woman regarded him with an expression carved from stone. “She is twelve,” she stated, incredulous.

 “She is the heir to Clow’s power,” Yue countered.

 Getting up, she leaned on the desk for support. “You judged her fit,” she said. “You were party to putting this on her.” She tossed her hair back. The sharp movement caused a grimace. “Crap. I can’t do this without caffeine in me.” She clutched her handbag, slipped back into shoes, and started for the door. “Come with me.” She made an impatient beckoning gesture indicating that Yue should follow.

 Reluctant to move at all, he rose and obeyed.

 “It’s your fault twice over that the kid nearly lost her mother.” Chrys threw the door open as she started out into the hall.

 Yue moved more quickly. “Nearly?” he echoed.

 Chrys punched a code into a panel next to a door at the end of the hall branching. She pushed open the fire door, revealing access to the parking lot. “Let’s go. The alarm is set.”

 He followed her to her vehicle. She opened the passenger side door on the white sports car and waited for him to take a seat. Her manner was brusque, businesslike. She slipped in behind the steering wheel.

 “You said, ‘Nearly,’” Yue repeated with more trepidation than hope. “Is Nadeshiko-san alive?”

 

. . .

 

“She isn’t dead,” answered Chrys in a low, hard voice. She jammed the Miata into gear and pulled out of the lot onto a side street to avoid arterial traffic. She headed west. She didn’t say anything else to her passenger until after she parked again. He stared at her during the brief drive. He didn’t seem good with words. She appreciated his silences.

 The double-takes generated by their walk of shame up the block to the espresso bar – she in evening wear, he in wrinkled clothing – improved her mood. That he gave no attention to the assessment of passers-by added to her amusement. At the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, she ordered an iced drink with extra espresso shots and a hot drink as well.

 Out of place with their surroundings, Yue said, “I cannot give her back what I have taken.” The barista looked up and smiled at the sound of Japanese spoken but did not indicate understanding of the foreign language.

 “Let’s not talk about that here.” Chrys received the beverages as they were completed. She put a straw in her blended mocha and a snapped a lid onto the Americano. She handed the paper cup to Yue.

 “I don’t want this,” he said.

 “Take it anyway.”

 She led him outside, across the street, and two more short, old city blocks. They came out to a beach view. In spite of the shining sun, she took off her Gucci sunglasses. “Have you ever been to Venice?” she asked. She took a deep breath of the fresh, salted air and a long sip of her sweet drink.

 “Yes, although I preferred Rome,” he answered with ingenuousness.

 Chrys laughed, surprising herself. “This is the Venice boardwalk,” she explained. She took a seat on the low concrete wall.

 He said nothing. He looked at his hands. He placed the paper coffee cup on the wall between them.

 “No, hold on to that,” Chrys told him. “And sit down and smell the ocean.”

 “Why?”

 “I hate sobering up. But this,” she tipped her chin at the ocean view, “makes it suck less.” She waited until he complied with her direction. “Sometimes, the world is shit, Tsukishiro,” she told him. “Coffee makes it better. You don’t even have to drink it. You just hold it in your hand,” she cradled her plastic cup, “and smell it. It’s one good thing.”

 “Tsukishiro Yukito is a false identity. My name is Yue,” he revealed.

 “Just ‘Yue’? No last name?”

 He paused in consideration. “Reed, perhaps,” he said at last, with evident sadness.

 She unconsciously followed his lead and switched to using English. “Yue Reed. Why do you use an alias?”

 “He is not an alias. He is a false form.”

 Chrys blinked her confusion at him. “What does that mean?”

 “Our appearance differs. Until recently, he had no indication of my existence. However, he is not real. In that form, I have had little contact with anyone outside of Yuriko-san’s immediate family.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes. She saw him inhale deeply and thought that he might be taking in the perfume of coffee.

 When he opened his eyes again, she held out her hand. “Amamiya Kikuu. ‘Chrysanthemum,’ so in English I go by Chrys.” She saw his hesitation before he took her hand. “Nadeshiko-san is my first cousin. Magic girls run in the family. I brought you here to me.”

 “The coincidence of our meeting becomes more clear to me.” He studied her with his amethyst eyes. He had not released her hand. “Clow often said, ‘There are not coincidences.’”

 “No one has one single fate,” Chrys countered. “The choices you make matter.”

 He turned his head and watched the waves. He drew his hand back, letting her go. She saw lines around his eyes tighten. She saw the small indication of pained need because she looked for it in his face.

 “Thank you,” she said. He did not respond. She continued, “You should know that I am not going to reneg. First, you will make this right. Then, I will give my magic to you. As much of it as you need.” She studied his face, saw his lips tighten, saw his throat move with a swallow. He blinked against the sand tossed up by the ocean gusts.

  _If only,_ Chrys thought as she turned her view to the ocean as well. She could never fix the world, but she always had to try. She chased down possibilities with lights flashing, sure she was right.

 After he collapsed on the office floor, he could be nothing else in her eyes but a broken thing. She hated herself for being conflicted because he was attractive, as if nothing beautiful could ever be entirely bad. She didn’t sleep. Instead, she slowly drank most of the bottle of sake and nearly made herself sick on cooled food.

 Out in the surf, a homeless man jumped in the waves. He scrubbed at his armpits and chest. The ocean was his bath tub.

 Yue’s gaze was distant. He wasn’t observing the view in front of him. He looked far across the salt water vista. His voice, when he spoke, did not compete with the noise of the waves. “That is unexpected generosity,” he said.

 Chrys watched the homeless man bathe. “I’ve always had more than others. More wealth. More opportunities. I have to give a lot just to break even.” She stood up. Her cellular phone served for a timepiece. “I have to rebook my flight to include you. We’ll do that from my house so that I can change clothes and pack. By then the stores will be open.” Chrys had never outgrown her love of fashion dolls. “We need to get you some better clothes.”

 

~*~

 


	2. Hunger

Keroberos could see the storm beginning. Yuriko wanted an explanation. The cards wanted to give her warning and guidance. Yuriko wanted them to do what she, the Cardmaster, wanted, and when she put her mind to something, the little sorceress did not yield.

Yuriko shuffled the cards again. She flipped over the first of three cards and laid it on the counterpane of her bed while she remained standing. It was The Light. The next card, The Dark, line up with the first with precision. Both of these cards retained the crimson and yellow colors of Clow. Yuriko, thunderclouds mounting in her expression, revealed the third card. The Erase card shimmered with Yuriko's achromatic sheen.

"The same ones," she said. "Every time. Every time! Why!" Her voice increased in volume as the fury broke. "Why?" she shouted. "Why! Why!" With each repetition, she swept away a card. "Why every day the same!" she screamed at her Sun Guardian.

She shuffled the cards again, fast, leaving out the three offenders. She slammed down another three card spread and the cards came up The Time (a card under The Dark), The Return (a card under The Light), and The Power, inverted.

All the cards for offense magic and all the cards under the sun orientation were now Yuriko cards. A few cards under the moon remained unchanged. The Light and The Dark refused to change.

Yuriko started to lay out another divination with the cards. The second unchanged moon-oriented card came up. Breathing fast, Yuriko flipped the two cards away and began again. The next card was not to her liking, either, and she swept it aside with force.

"Yuriko!" Keroberos tried to remember how Clow had diffused altercations with other magic users. The truth was, as often as not, Clow escalated conflict with his callow manner. Keroberos drew inspiration, instead, from Sunday matinee science fiction. "Power comes from a calm mind!" Keroberos reproached the new master of the Clow. "Begin with self-control!"

Yuriko's eyes flashed like black lighting. "You don't think I have self-control?" she asked in a voice like falling icicles.

Keroberos could not show her his apprehension. "You have a strong will. I've seen your self-control since I chose you as the candidate." He panned his head and thick paw left and right, making a show of looking at the scattered cards. "This is not a display of control."

Yuriko threw the remaining cards to the floor. Then she threw herself onto her bed, turned her back to Keroberos, wrapped her arms around her pillow and buried her face in it.

Keroberos put his head down onto his paws. He twitched at the sound of hitched sobbing. After several minutes of her nearly silent crying, he could hear the muffled cries for her mother. She would push him away if he tried to comfort her, he knew from experience.

Footsteps approached the bedroom door. Keroberos had just enough time to transform to his small, plush doll form before the door opened. He held himself stiff on the floor rug amid the chaos of cards when Yuriko's father entered the room.

Fujitaka sat down with care beside his daughter. He put a hand lightly onto Yuriko's loose hair. His voice was very gentle. "Yuriko-san. We're going to see your mother. Can you get dressed and ready?" He gave her a moment to respond and was met with silence. If Yuriko still cried, Keroberos could not hear it. Fujitaka continued, "Your aunt Kikuu will be arriving this morning. We'll meet her at the hospital."

"I don't know her," Yuriko complained after she sat up.

"You don't remember Disneyland?" Fujitaka prompted. He seemed to register the cards scattered across the floor for the first time, and Keroberos saw a different kind of concern tint his countenance.

"I didn't like the Small World." She scowled, and it was difficult for Keroberos not to grimace with her. Even after reincarnation, The Song still tended to favor that _ohrwurm_ from the time of her capture. Once The Song got started, the annoying theme would be stuck in Keroberos’ head for days.

Fujitaka's eyes had settled on the Clow Book's newly white binding. He reached for the altered Clow Book. "Yuriko-san, where did you get this book?"

Yuriko looked at her father. Keroberos waited in anxious suspense.

"It looks very much like one..." Fujitaka's words faded out as he examined the book front and back. He began to reach for one of the unchanged cards whose ochre coloring made a bright spot of color among the white Yuriko cards.

In one smooth motion, the card master slipped off her bed and landed on the floor. Before her father could react to the action, she had her staff in hand and had raised a Clow card. She intoned the reincarnation spell and activated the card. "Dream!"

With uncharacteristic gentleness, she took her entranced father's hand, led him out to the hallway, and closed the door on him. The Dream remained active while she collected the scattered cards. She opened her backpack to invite Keroberos to join the cards for travel. Yuriko let the card continue to weave its world until she stood dressed in a tidy skirt and blouse. A matching plaid ribbon tied back her straight hair.

She called the card back to her and was stowing it away with the others when her father knocked at the door. He opened it slowly. Confusion and the remains of his magically induced daze played across his face. "We are going to see your mother, Yuriko-chan, can you... Oh, I see that you are already set to go." His befuddlement gave way to an unchecked expression of weariness.

"Also, do you remember your Aunt Kikuu? She is going to meet us at the hospital."

"Mmh." Yuriko zipped up her backpack, and that was the last Keroberos could see except for the interior of the bag until sometime later.

. . .

The fair young man looked up when Chrys stepped into the row. Once she settled herself in to the roomy seat, he greeted her with a gregarious hello. His English was unpracticed.

“Hello,” Chrys answered, in the same manner she would have used with a true stranger.  She opened her magazine and began to flip through the high gloss pages.

“Excuse me, are you... traveling... to home?” asked Yukito. He seemed more needful of social interaction than embarrassed at his awkward phrasing.

Chrys looked into the earnest hazel eyes and could not see Yue in them. There was physical resemblance, however. Tsukishiro was a large eyed, sweet faced version of Yue Reed, a version of him from a kinder world, perhaps because he had been spared the damage of a long life’s history. She wanted to tell Yue, “Your mask is astonishing.” Instead, she took pity on the false persona and answered him in Japanese. “I’m traveling to visit family.”

Yukito beamed with relief. “Sorry to bother you. I’m not used to taking trips by myself.” His bright smile lighted up his eyes. He leaned toward her slightly, his body language conveying all the indicators of safe friendliness. “This was my first trip to America. It was very interesting!”

“Did you enjoy your visit?”

“Yes, I did. Very much.”  Yukito’s cheer faltered. He sat back in his seat. “These seats are very comfortable,” he commented. “I... guess I was upgraded to first class... for some reason.”

“It happens all the time,” Chrys lied. She had, of course, paid for his first class ticket. She watched the young man droop further, his eyelids beginning to fall. When he went limp, he looked less like a man sleeping than like an inanimate mannequin.

She made herself comfortable. Once the plane took off, she would sleep through most of the eight hour flight herself if she could. She needed to make up for the sleepless night that had passed.

. . .

Fujitaka took Yuriko on the train. He didn’t trust himself to drive, after the stress hallucination that he had experienced that morning. It had been like a waking dream, worse than mere _déjà vu_. He had too many things on his mind to mull over than the tarot cards that he had imagined scattered across his daughter’s room.

Taking the train gave him something concrete on which to focus. They needed to switch lines twice in the city to reach the hospital. When they arrived, he found out that Nadeshiko had been moved from a standard room to a large and quiet room in another wing of the hospital. He soon also found out why the change had occurred.

“Sonomi-kun,” Fujitaka greeted, surprised.

Nadeshiko’s cousin Sonomi stood by Nadeshiko’s bed. With obvious reluctance, she turned her attention away from Nadeshiko when Fujitaka and Yuriko entered the room.

“Ah, Kinomoto-sensei,” she addressed Fujitaka, then his daughter. “Hello, Yuriko-chan.”

Fujitaka always sensed an air of resentment from his wife’s cousin. She had never truly forgiven him for dating Nadeshiko from when she was a high school student, he guessed. The age difference between him and his wife meant nothing, now, but even though he had been a young teacher, and Nadeshiko had been over the age of consent, Sonomi had never approved. Yet, unlike the rest of Nadeshiko’s estranged family, here she was at Nadeshiko’s side.

They had an awkward conversation around generalities for a few minutes. The spoke about Nadeshiko’s condition. Finally, Fujitaka brought himself to ask about the room change.

“Our family’s donations built this wing of the hospital building. It is the least thing to place Nadeshiko in one of its rooms,” answered Sonomi in response to Fujitaka’s pointedly polite questioning.

Fujitaka felt his even temper unraveling. He was having difficulty continuing to be cordial under the stressful circumstances.

Yuriko said something in a small voice. He turned his attention away from Sonomi. “What was that, Yuriko-san?” he asked.

“They didn’t move our flowers with Mama,” she said. The little girl stared at the floral bouquets.

“We can bring her new ones,” said Fujitaka. “Sonomi-kun, can we perhaps speak together a moment?” Fujitaka meant a private meeting of the adults. Yuriko resisted when he took her hand to leave the room as a group.

“I want to stay with Mama,” she begged.

“We will come back after your aunt and I talk.” He had to tug, though gently, to start his daughter moving out the door. Once they started, Sonomi complied and joined them.

Fujitaka seated Yuriko on a stiff cushioned chair in the waiting area. He pat her hand before he walked around the corner, ostensibly out of earshot of the girl, to have his discussion with his wife’s domineering cousin.

. . .

Yuriko opened the zipper of her backpack the rest of the way. There were no adults present. Kero peeked out his small, round head.

“Mirror!” Yuriko called out her doppelganger in a low command. “Twin!” She duplicated her backpack. “Stay here until I return. If Papa comes back first, ask to use the toilet. I will meet you there in that case.” She waited only long enough to receive The Mirror’s acknowledgment before taking up her real backpack, complete with her sun guardian and magic cards, and  heading back along the hall to her mother’s sick room.

She slipped into the room and closed the door. “Lock! Flower!” She set The Lock on the hospital door. Flower stood, nervously sashaying, waiting for Yuriko to give direction. The sorceress made a freeing gesture, and Flower swooped around the room, her action filling it with floral perfume.

Yuriko stood on tiptoe by her mother’s bed. “So when you wake up,” she told her mother, “you will think of me.”

The florist’s bouquets from Sonomi Daidouji still irritated Yuriko. She took The Mist out of the Clow book.  Forcing change on two cards in one day would not be too much for her. The moon and dark oriented cards that remained pushed her limits. However, with every successful transformation, Yuriko’s magic increased in stability. She flipped the card into the air and struck it with her key. “Reincarnate under the new contract!” Color fell away from the card as if devoured by its own mist.

Yuriko cast the tendrils of dissolving mist around the offending bouquets. She had the card take only the flowers, leaving the crystal vases untouched.

She sealed all the cards again with a small smile of satisfaction. With another look at her unconscious mother, her smile vanished, and a hard line took its place. She jogged back down the hall to resume waiting for her father.

. . .

Yue sat in the passenger seat of Chrys’s rented Maserati coupe, letting his damaged body slump against the locked door. It was dark and warm in the parking structure. He could have walked away, he knew, but if he stayed, he could cling on to the wisp of hope that the woman could fix one aspect of all that had gone wrong.

Nadeshiko lived and was under care in this hospital. Chrys even now went to her side, to influence chance in favor of Nadeshiko’s recovery.

His cheek pressed against the smooth glass window. He closed his eyes. Chrys had offered him the chance to make right what had gone wrong. She had offered him restoration. Yet choices could not be undone. Events could not be unwound to the origin that led him to this point, because even if the Time card could be used in such a way, Yuriko had no impetus to do so, nor could he imagine that Yuriko’s older relative could influence her to do it. The consideration was an idle one, anyway. Yuriko did not have enough power to sustain Yue, therefore she did not have enough magic strength to use time to alter events. Clow himself did not use Time that way. He used it as he used the Loop.

He wondered: where, in actuality, was the origin of his misfortune? Was it Yuriko herself, being bound to a master who would allow him to fade away? She would rather lose a great part of her magic inheritance than offer him help or even sympathy.

Chrys’s odd sympathy to his situation made as little sense to him as her young relative’s disregard. Could it be that something besides pity motivated her to want to give him her magic? She had stated a loathing for her abilities. Where Yuriko seemed to have an appetite for power to herself, Chrys distained her own, which if he believed her explanation of it, was a significant power.

The bond to Clow’s magic could not be broken, regardless of the conversion of the cards to Yuriko’s magic, and Yue would always be bound to them and to Keroberos. After restoring his magic strength with the gift of her magic, however, he would be able to live independent of Yuriko’s whim. He couldn’t imagine what kind of life it would be, only that he would live.

Yue thought about Clow’s last words to him. He wanted to live. With Clow’s last words, he had told Yue to live.

. . .

Fujitaka curtailed the residual ire from his conversation with Sonomi Daidouji. He could only tolerate interference from Nadeshiko’s family to the degree that it helped Nadeshiko. Beyond that, the Amamiyas were simply throwing around their fiscal weight, flexing wealth and power because it came naturally to them to do so.

He schooled his countenance into a calm face before he returned to his daughter. He checked his watch. His tense discussion with Sonomi, which had led to her leaving in a huff, had consumed over a quarter hour. Still, Yuriko patiently sat in the otherwise empty waiting area. She had her music player in her lap. When she saw her father return, she removed her headphones and stood up. Fujitaka sighed quietly. While it made it easier for him that his daughter could take care of herself, even to planning entertainment in case she was left to her own devices, he felt the usual worry that she was too accustomed to independence.

“We can go back to your Mama together, now,” he said to her. She didn’t say anything as they left the waiting area.

He didn’t register that the sweet scent filling the corridor was flowers until the sight of Nadeshiko’s room stopped him utterly. He froze at the entrance, taking in the sight of dozens of white flowers crowding the tables and floor near Nadeshiko’s hospital bed. Like a cloud of glowing stars, huge white lilies surrounded his sleeping wife.

He could not stop the involuntary shiver that passed over him when Yuriko brushed past him to enter the room. Her hard-soled Mary Jane shoes tapped on the smooth floor as she ran to her mother’s side and took her hand. Fujitaka made himself join her. He took Nadeshiko’s other hand, and he was comforted to feel more warmth in her delicate hand than she had radiated the previous evening.

Nevertheless, his daughter’s expression held worry and a mix of emotions not right for her young face. Fujitaka looked across Nadeshiko at their daughter, studying her. “Yuriko-san,” he started. His mouth had become unexpectedly dry. He started over. “These flowers. Do you know something about them?”

The girl’s attention was entirely on her mother. “Mhm,” she confirmed.

Fujitaka’s grip tightened on Nadeshiko’s hand. “How did they come to be here?” he asked. For some time, he had suspected a mystery around his daughter, but Nadeshiko had waved away his concerns or otherwise told him to ignore his hunches. Now, Nadeshiko’s sudden illness caused him to question why he had let the mystery go on.

A mild voice, accompanied by a soft rapping, carried from the doorway. “Kinomoto-san.” The woman who stood waiting to be invited to enter was Nadeshiko’s other cousin. She walked closer once he noticed her and motioned her in.

“Kikuu-san,” Fujitaka greeted, “hello.” The tension of the moment broke and resettled on his shoulders with easier, familiar weight.

Nadeshiko’s cousin walked up to the hospital bed and stood next to Yuriko. Yuriko paid no special attention to the woman. “Has Nadeshiko-san woken up yet today?” Chrys asked Fujitaka.

“For a few minutes in the early morning,” answered Fujitaka. “Not since we arrived.”

“Then Nadeshiko-san will be waking up soon,” she said after a long look at the unconscious woman. “Her recovery might be slow, but her chances are better now.” She looked at Fujitaka. Her abrupt smile appeared forced. “Because of the good care that she is being given,” she clarified.

Yuriko gave the woman a sudden and intense gaze that made Fujitaka wonder what he had missed. The older woman shared a mutually assessing gaze with the girl.

“Later,” Chrys advised. “Your mother will be awake soon. It will be alright.”

“No, it won’t,” said Yuriko. “It’s never alright.” She stared, as haughty as a queen.

Fujitaka reprimanded his daughter for what he assumed was rudeness. “Yuriko-san!”

Chrys raised a hand in a pacifying gesture. “Don’t worry, Kinomoto-san. She’s under a lot of pressure.”

Fujitaka let it go for the moment. “Thank you for coming,” he said, instead

“Thank you for letting me be here,” she answered. She walked to a corner of the room away from the hospital bed, drawing Fujitaka away from Nadeshiko’s side. “How are you holding up?” she asked in a low voice.

Fujitaka smiled in discomfort at the invasive question. It never took long to be reminded that the woman was American in her ways. “I have been concerned,” he admitted.

“I plan to stay until everything is stable,” Chrys said.

“Can you take so much time from your responsibilities?” Fujitaka asked. “We don’t want to impose on you.”

“Kinomoto-san, I’m the one imposing,” she replied. She glanced toward Yuriko. “Maybe I have imposed too much. I’ll leave now to let Nadeshiko rest, but,” she drew a note from her purse, “would you call me when she wakes? Here is the number of the hotel where I’m staying. You can call there or my cell phone.”

“Yes, of course,” he answered. He took the information and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“Now I should go,” Chrys said. “Yuriko-san,” she called over quietly, “we will talk tomorrow, OK?” She didn’t wait for the little girl’s answer, instead continuing out as if she had been given an affirmation.

ooo

When her father wasn’t looking, Yuriko opened her bag and shook Kero out. “Follow that woman,” she said, indicating Chrys. “Did you feel her _kehai_? She has magic of some kind.”

Kero bit his tongue on the question he had for her regarding the flowers in Nadeshiko’s hospital room. He had overheard everything from his hiding place inside Yuriko’s bag, especially the tone of her father’s voice. Yuriko needed to remember that her father was an ally. She was still a little girl in the eyes of the law; she couldn’t alienate her father, especially with her mother in such an uncertain state of health.

For the moment, he zipped away as she had ordered. She was right about her aunt. The American woman had an aura of magic that he followed from the hospital to where cars were parked. At that point he picked up another magical signature, one he knew in an instant: Yue! His sibling's aura flickered, not like moonlight between clouds, but like a guttering fire. Kero’s happiness to feel Yue alive was almost overwhelmed by the pressure of his worry.

Kero searched around for his brother, flying from pillar to lightpost to keep hidden from casual viewers. He couldn’t believe it when he found Yue. The Moon Guardian was in his natural form, in the confines of a small, parked car. He wasn’t moving, but his eyes glowed with the embers of his life.

The Sun Guardian flew up to glass and threw a shimmer of sun magic against the window to get Yue’s attention. It worked; Yue lifted his drooping head. He fumbled inside the car until he was able to open the door.

“Keroberos,” Yue said, his eyes brightening.

“Yue, you’re alive,” Kero answered. He didn’t hesitate to throw himself into Yue’s personal space. Kero remained in his small form so that he could sit on Yue’s shoulder. “Your hair’s all chewed off.”

“Not chewed,” Yue said, managing to sound peevish in a murmur. “Cut. It was necessary.”

“Huh. I wonder about that,” Kero commented. “Yue, the moon ruled cards have been trying to tell Yuriko that we need you back. She can’t get them to change to Yuriko cards without a fight. Light and Dark won’t budge.”

“If they don’t reincarnate,” Yue said, “they will fade away until they are no more than paper. They cannot continue without Clow’s magic as Clow cards.”

“They know,” Kero answered.

Yue’s sigh was full of sorrow. “I must return to mistress Yuriko, then, and convince the cards to change.”

“She has to let you come back, first, Yue. Right now, it’s dangerous for you. What are we going to do?” Kero fluttered down to perch on his brother’s knee.  “Why are you here? Of all places? What are you doing?”

“What I can to remain alive. I am caught in a chain of events that is outside my control,” Yue answered, “and under the influence of another. A user of magic found me.”

“I can help get you out of here. I’ll change size --”

“That’s not necessary,” Yue interrupted. He suddenly pushed Kero down. “She is here,” he warned, and Kero felt Chrys’s magic aura approaching.

“You _are_ here with Yuriko’s aunt.” He looked around. Kero flew down behind Yue’s seat. He hid, planning to stay with Yue longer before returning to Yuriko. The driver side door opened and closed as Chrys got into the car.

“I did what I could,” Chrys said as she took her seat. She turned to look at Yue. “She will recover physically. I can see that much in the near future. Nadeshiko has always had a strong spirit, too.” She turned forward, putting keys in the ignition, then paused and closed her eyes. She pressed her hands against her temples as if thinking thoughts she wanted to keep contained. “I saw Yuriko,” she commented. “I looked at her fate lines.”

Kero watched them sit there, neither talking, and wondered how he was going to find out anything if the silence continued. As if Yue could feel Kero’s mental prodding to say something, Yue asked Chrys, “Will you be informed of Nadeshiko-san’s progress?”

“Yes, I left my number. Nade will call me if she knows I’m here.” She opened her eyes and started the car engine. She took the car out of the parking garage and continued out onto the busy street.

Yue didn’t add to the conversation. Kero wriggled under the passenger side seat until he could reach Yue’s foot. He wasn’t annoyed enough to bite Yue’s ankle, so satisfied himself with a sharp poke.

“Hm,” Yue reacted.

“What?” Chrys asked.

“Is it enough?” Yue asked, prompted by Kero’s prodding.

“Have I done enough, you mean?” Chrys rephrased. She laughed. It was a short laugh, regretful.

“Truly, is it enough to put things right?” Yue asked. “When you use your power to alter a person’s chances.”

“I don’t know,” Chrys replied. “It’s not enough just to wake Nadeshiko up, is it. I still have to decide what to do about you.”

“I must confront her,” Yue said.

Chrys glanced briefly away from the road to look at Yue. “Nadeshiko?”

Yue shook his head. “Yuriko. The cards under my jurisdiction are endangered by the path she is on.”

“There’s something about Yuriko’s fate, Yue.” Her voice gave away her uncertainty. “There’s a darkness there, and I don’t mean that metaphorically.”

Yue remained silent. Kero guessed that he must be judging how much to tell the woman, and how much to keep secret. He let Yue think without poking at his foot again. “Chrys,” Yue said softly, “with my current level of power, I cannot approach Yuriko. My injuries were intended to be fatal. I need my magic restored to address the opposition she will send against me.”

“You have such a delicate turn of phrase, Yue,” Chrys said. “It’s an ugly thing to say, but I understand. Yuriko wanted you dead. Kids don’t really understand what death is, what dead means, unless they’ve lost someone close. Yuriko didn’t know her grandparents on either side, and I don’t think she’s ever even had a pet she cared about. I’m not making excuses for her, but I’m trying to say, she’s still a little girl who doesn’t have a lot of life experience.”

“The other thing,” Chrys continued. “I can’t power you up yet. Not just yet. I need to know what her fate line means, because I might be the only person who can shift it.” She paused the conversation at the hotel parking entrance, where she spent a few minutes in gaining entrance and parking. When the car engine was off, Yue opened his door to give Kero an opportunity to sneak out. Yue sat up in his seat, providing more coverage for Kero by blocking the reflection of the passenger door mirror.

. . .


	3. Night Blooming

“What of Yuriko, herself?” Yue asked, his tone snappish. “Ultimately, isn’t it oneself who shapes one’s own future?”

“Is it.” There was no question in Chrys’s response. “Even I can only pull at threads of chance. When your own threads are pulled, what becomes of the shape you are making, then? A sort of kasuri weaving, at best. The threads are already colored in a pattern you don’t know. My fingers are practiced at it. That is our advantage now.” She stepped out of the car, Yue followed suit, and Kero zipped around to a blind spot. “One way or another, we will finish this. You won’t go to Yuriko alone. But for now, we will have to wait until I hear from them to consider what change in the pattern comes next.”

Kero took that as his cue and flew away as soon as Yue and Chrys entered the elevator lobby. It was a long way to fly back to Tomoeda. Kero had no intention of making so much effort, not when there was a perfectly useful train to sneak onto. A convenient piece of luggage covered the space under a seat, creating a good hiding place for the ride.

ooo

Chrys and Yue continued on to their hotel suite without saying more to each other. Exhaustion weighed on Yue’s shoulders. Once in the room, he made his way to the view at the window and stood looking outward, but not really seeing the cityscape any more clearly than his ghostly reflection in the glass.

“I’m as impatient to be done with this as you,” Chrys muttered under her breath as she first stalked into the bedroom, discarded her purse and coat, and came out to beeline to the wet bar. 

She fixed a drink for herself. The clinking of ice in a glass seemed to echo in the room. Yue thought of Clow, who used his magic for such simple pleasures as chilling his liquor, and wondered how anyone could be in alignment with his feelings. “I am not impatient,” he said quietly. “Time is not the same for me as for you.” He felt her gaze on him. Looking at the room behind him reflected in the window, he saw her lean across the bar counter, observing him.

“You’re a beautiful man. That’s what I see, even knowing you are something else. I’m grotesque, aren’t I? I know what you are, and I still think you are beautiful.” She moved out from behind the bar, but she didn’t approach him. She sat, instead, on a chair across the room that faced the front door. 

Her words gave him discomfort. He had heard such comments before, covetous and sometimes lustful. “Those with magic are by their nature strange,” he said in a voice, not loud, that carried nevertheless. Clow had excused his contemporaries in the same way. “I am beautiful. My maker created me to be so. I am as I am, however you judge me does not change me.”

“You could have killed someone who is very important to me,” Chrys said. “Only because I can see that you had no choice… no, not only. It works in your favor, but I want you to forgive me for it anyway.” A testy sigh poured out of her. “Don’t listen to me, since I can’t seem to stop talking.”

Outside, the sky suddenly darkened to lavender. The darkness deepened. Soon Yue could see that a total absence of light was drawing across the sky, an unnatural night that covered everything like a shroud being pulled over the world beyond the hotel window. “Chrys! Look!” he hissed. She was beside him in a hurry.

“What’s happening?” she gasped.

“We must go,” Yue said. 

ooo

The announcement for the closest stop to Tomoeda warned Kero to be ready when the doors opened at the station, but the train slowed, then stopped before reaching the transfer point as if out of power. Passengers who were standing slumped to the ground. All around him, he felt the presence of magic; even if the evidence weren’t clear, he would know that the train and its passengers were under a spell. Carefully looking out from his hiding place, Kero saw that everyone in the train car lay still, as if in sleep.

The magic sleep extended beyond the train, he saw when he flew up to the glass doors. Nothing moved in the scene beyond. And the sky! It had begun to turn black, like night falling, but much, much darker, because no stars or moon eased the darkness.

“Clow…” he murmured to himself. He shook his head, knowing it couldn’t be Clow Reed, back somehow from being dead. He had decided some time ago that Clow wouldn’t have let things get so off plan. He wouldn’t have left Yue to get so sick, or left him injured after Yuriko tried to kill him. Kero couldn’t explain why the magic felt like Clow’s, but it had to be someone else, he was sure it couldn’t be Clow.

The spell felt like spokes shooting outward from Tsukimine Shrine. That made sense with how many other incidents had focused there; the Shinto shrine attracted the supernatural the way a tall tree attracted passing birds to perch. Kero pushed himself to top flying speed. With the city asleep around him, he could safely take full sized form, and full wingspan, without being witnessed. He hurried and watched the darkness fall. 

He arrived to meet Yuriko dashing up the road toward the shrine entrance. Stopping near the torii gate, she traded The Dash for The Light, still unchanged, and holding up the card and her wand, she tried to fight the darkness back. She shrieked frustration at the resistance of the card to her will.

“Gently, Yuriko!” Kero bellowed.

She turned to look at him before turning her attention back to the card. She was angry, but she also looked frightened.

“Everyone’s asleep,” he said as he landed beside her.

“I know,” she answered. “This magic aura feels the same as before. Like the other weird happenings that matched so well with reincarnating these cards so far.” 

Kero saw the silhouettes a moment before Yuriko. He opened his mouth to call her attention to the three shadows standing atop the shrine gate, but Yuriko put The Light back with the deck and stepped further into the shrine to challenge the new arrivals. “I’ll take a guess,” she yelled up. “You’re my rival, and those two with the butterfly wings are your backup.”

Kero could see the figures better, now. One was a big cat, like him, but a panther with monarch butterfly wings instead of a lion with feather wings. Another was a humanoid figure, but not human either, like Yue, Kero guessed. That one had a painted face, long, pink hair, a cruel smile, and butterfly wings as well. The center figure appeared human.

Yuriko continued the challenge. “I bet you have Clow Reed’s magic. You are either a reincarnation, or you’re his descendant.”

A sweet voice sounded out from above them. “My father is Eriol Hiiragizawa, but in a past life, he was known as Clow Reed,” the young woman answered. She tapped her staff and a glowing pink light illuminated her and her companions. She was young, only a few years older than Yuriko. “You can call me Sakura.”

“So, are we going to fight?” Yuriko asked.

“It wouldn’t be fair, when one of your guardians is missing,” Sakura said. “Plus, there is this spell that you have to break. If you don’t figure out how, this darkness will become eternal. Your family, your friends will never wake from their enchanted sleep.”

“Is this another test?” Yuriko shouted. “Is this a game for you? For Clow Reed? I’ve already proved my power!”

Sakura sat down on the top of the gate and dangled her feet. She wore white Mary Jane shoes and knee socks that ended at the hem of her circle skirt. “Time is passing, Yuriko. You have to do something.”

Knowing Yuriko well enough to anticipate her response, Kero prepared. When Yuriko fanned out a handful of cards to attacked Sakura, Kero launched into the air to intercept the counterattack by Sakura’s guardians. He closed quarters with the winged woman. The panther spit a blast of energy that Kero twisted to avoid, and the pink haired guardian laughed. Her pleasure was quickly cut short by Yuriko’s magic. The Thunder boomed. Then The Watery crashed into her and knocked her down to the hard ground. 

Sakura cried out concern. “Ruby Moon!” Continuing to evade Yuriko’s attacks, Sakura leaped to protect Ruby Moon from a jet of The Fiery’s heat.

The panther bounded toward Yuriko, from behind her. She didn’t see him. Kero threw himself into the panther’s path.

They faced each other, growling threat from their throats. “Nice fairy wings,” Kero mocked.

“We need not continue this combat,” the panther said. “Advise your mistress to stop this aggression.”

“You talk like Yue,” Kero grumped.

“Your missing moon guardian,” the panther said. “It seems that temperaments of sun and moon switched in our generation.”

Kero snorted. “Your moon girl would be lucky to have my personality,” he said. 

“Ruby Moon,” the panther corrected. “And I am Spinel Sun, Cerberus. There is much at stake here. End this conflict.”

“Oh, I’ll end it,” Kero said. He braced himself to blast Spinel Sun with flaming breath. It would take a lot out of him, but it would be worth it to fry that snooty attitude. Kero bellowed fire. Spinel evaded it.

“Stop!” Sakura shouted. “Stop this! Night has fallen, Yuriko! Don’t you care?”

Fatigue showed in Yuriko’s posture, but her eyes blazed with determination. “Stopping you will break the spell,” Yuriko said. Kero circled close to her, trying to watch Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon, who were flying slow patterns that forced him to keep both of them in view.

“No, it won’t!” Sakura responded. “Find the right way. I know you can, I believe in you,” she insisted. “Why haven’t you been able to change all the cards? Think about the ones that are left.”

Kero grumbled low in his throat. “They’re all moon-ruled,” he said in a voice only for Yuriko.

“You told me that’s why you can’t help me,” Yuriko snapped at him.

Kero exhaled a noisy breath. “You know who can. Yue will come back if you call him.”

ooo

 


End file.
